Every country has a different name for the various groups of school grades; from high school to elementary school. What's yours?

Ours are the same as yours… the grades differ between Canadian provinces, but by little. Army… not so much.

But only 11 grades, right? Then CEGEP?

Only in my province. ;) The others have 12 grades in high school.

In Mexico we have primary (1–6), secondary (7–9) and preparatory (10–12).

We had elementary (K-5), middle (6–8), high (9–12).

Here in england town it’s nursery (3–4) primary (4–11) & secondary/comprehensive (11–16)

Southeastern US

K-5: Elementary School
6–8: Middle School (formerly Junior High)
9–12 High School
Then college..

When I went to public school (September, 1955 – June, 1965) in the Los Angeles area, grades K-6 were taught in elementary school, 7–9 in junior high school, and 10–12 in high school.

S.A. sounds the same Grades. We write Matric here at the end. Here also you have to pass every year to get to the next year.

In Germany primary school is called Grundschule and children visit it from years 1–4.
Then they attend secondary school, called Weiterführende Schule here, from year 5 to year 13. If you don’t want to do your A-Levels, you leave school after year 10.

Forgive my ignorance, but are the freshman/sophomore/junior/senior labels an American creation? I notice that some other countries have less (or more) years of high school, so are there other names used or is it just first/second/etc year? And what about college titles?

Here college is different to University. We don’t use sophomore etc

@Shippy So, out of curiosity, what’s the difference between college and university?

Here, college is a broad term encompassing many routes after high school (technical college, community college, state universities, private colleges, etc). So, it doesn’t matter if you went to a tiny local technical school or a big university, it’s still college.

I’ve heard things like “I’m in my third year at uni” (“third year” spoken as if it’s one word), and figured this was a Brit thing, but I wasn’t sure.

K-6 were taught in elementary school, 7–9 in junior high school, and 10–12 in high school.
That was Oakland in the 60’s-70’s.

1–4 (primary school). then 5 to 10 (middle school), or 5 to 12 (Gymnasium in the east) or 5 to 13 (Gymnasium in the west)

Foleskole(public school) from 1. grade to 9. or 10. grade

After that, you can go to Gymnasium for three years, but it’s not mandatory.

And of course University.

In India, grades are called as classes, e.g. 5th grade is called 5th class.

2 years of kindergarten (junior and senior)
1–4: Primary School
5–10: Secondary School (also called here high school)
11–12: Higher Secondary Education (College: choose from either Science, Commerce or Arts) (or 3 years engineering diploma)
3 to 4 years undergraduate education (bachelor’s degree)
2 years masters degree
Doctorate (may be 3 to 5 years)

I forgot to say that almost all children go to daycare from age 1–3, kindergarten from the age apr. 3–6. and then Folkeskole.

In Las Vegas during the 70s and 80s we had elementary (k-5), a separate school for 6th grade (still considered elementary. we were bused across town to attend a sixth-grade center), Jr High (7–9) and high school (10–12).

When I moved to Illinois in the late 80s I noticed that jr. high was called middle-school. I thought that was strange. Middle school here in Illinois is for grades 6–8, but some towns do consider grades 6–8 to be jr high. My daughter would be attending a middle school (when she’s old enough) in the town we moved from two years ago, but where we live now it is called jr. high.

I had:

Kindergarten (also called “pre-primary”) for half a day
Grammar school (1–8)
High school (9–12)

Just to add to @ucme‘s above (which made perfect sense to me, but may not to those of you quoting school years rather than ages)...

Age 4 – Reception (pre year 1)
Age 5 – Enter year 1 of Primary School. Years Reception – 2 are known as infants.
Age 7 – Enter year 3 of Primary School. Years 3–6 are known as juniors.
Age 11 – Enter year 7, now at High School (aka secondary school). Years 7–11 gets you to the end of compulsory education, finishing aged 16. Exams are taken that stay with you for life.

Age 16 – Option to enter year 12, for 2 years of what is still traditionally known as “Sixth Form”. (Years 12–13 = Sixth Form. This is a throw back to when the year numbers re-started from 1 in secondary school. Interestingly there never was a 7th form.) These 2 years might be done still at secondary school if it offers it, or you might go to a specialist Sixth Form College. Exams are taken, that stay with you for life.
There are also technical colleges that cover these two years (aged 16–18) where you can study practical based subjects (such as chef training for example).

Beyond Sixth Form, aged 18, you can choose to go to University, where you typically study for 3 years. (In Scotland this is 4 years.) We don’t have different names for the different years of university, other than 1st 2nd and 3rd (though we’d typically refer to this as the Final year I suppose). University is where you graduate from. (We don’t “graduate” from school, we just do our exams and move on.) Having successfully completed your university course you have a degree.

Studies beyond your degree are called “Post-Graduate”, and depending on what you do, for differing lengths of time, you can achieve qualifications such as a Post Graduate Certificate or a Masters, or a Doctorate.

I went to school so long ago that all grades were held in one little log cabin room.

But actually, my schools were elementary (1–6), junior high (7–9), high school (10–12).

Elementary (K-6)
Junior High (7–8)
High School (9–12)

I did the elementary school from grades 1–6 (age 6–11); junior high from grades 7–9 (age 12–14) and high school from grades 10–12 (age 15–17). College was from age 18–21.

The year before I got to junior high, it went from grades 7–8 and high school was 9–12. But they built a new junior high, and switched 9th grade from high school to junior high just in time for me.

My children are doing it differently. Elementary school is grades K-5. Middle school is grades 6–8 and high school is grades 9–12.

In Australia we have pre-school (or Kindergarten or Kindy).

Primary School (5–11/12) Years 1–7

Secondary School (11/12–16/17). Years 8–12. Students can finish in year 10 (aged 15–16) but are encouraged to go on to year 12. To get into University you need to complete year 12.

Tertiary education – TAFE or private colleges or University.

There are slight State variances to ages for leaving/starting school.

@livelaughlove21 You need a higher pass in Matric to go to University and there you get Degrees. With College you get Diplomas.

@Bellatrix I believe Queensland and Tasmania also have a year 13, and in Queensland there is no Kinder.

I live in Queensland and my children went to school in Qld (up until two years ago) there is no year 13 and there is pre-school. I can’t speak for Tasmania but I did say there are state variations.

From Qld’s Department of Education, Training and Employment “From 2007 a full-time Preparatory Year replaces Preschool.” Pre-school has been available in Qld for years.

“This”“http://education.qld.gov.au/schools/about/state.html website sets out the structure for public education in Qld. There is no year 13.

In Tasmania, the prep year or what would have been pre-school year, is now labeled year 1. That’s why they have a year 13.

In Germany it differs between our 16 states. Here are a few common ones:

Grundschule (elementary school): 1–4 or 1–6
Realschule (middle school): 5–10 or 7–10
Gymnasium G8 (advanced school): 5–12
Gymnasium G9 (advanced school): 5–13

For the G9 there are also the terms Unterstufe (5–7), Mittelstufe (8–10) and Oberstufe (11–13).

@Bellatrix Thanks for the clarification. I completed my whole schooling in NSW, so was only repeating what I had been told.